This may be a bigger and more important case than merely takings case, as it could weaken many old* agricultural regulations. (*You may consider these “tried and true” as you will; I consider it “a terribly stupid plan”)
Short Take: the Department of Agriculture long has had some very strange rules dating back to the New Deal, ostensibly to protect farmers but which were, basically, a legalized graft cartel which padded the Department’s pockets at a heavy cost to farmers. The raisin issue raised in the above case is notable because the department stole “reserved” a full third of the raisin crop each year without compensation. These raisins were then sold off basically as pure profit to the department, under the vague notion that this somehow stabilized the raising market. Even the Ag lawyers aren’t terribly clear about the supposed benefits here. The notion back in the 1930’s appears to have been part of a belief that farmers were overproducing, hence why we have some odd regulations today which disincentive production.
Well, some years ago, a farmer in California noted that the Ag department orders applied to the intermediaries, not technically to the farmer himself. So he started direct sales and cut out the government share entirely. Basically, it all bogged down in court for the last decade, and twice went to the Supreme Court. SCOTUS finally ruled 8-1 in favor of the raisin farmer. And in the process, they not-too-subtly slapped the 9th Circuit silly, for trying to weakly claim a taking is not a taking if they can obfuscate the issue hard enough, and trying strenuously to ignore the last two centuries of Constitutional jurisprudence. Also, the Court kinda-sorta humiliated the government in the actual court session, so this wasn’t that surprising.
Sotomayer dissented, and I’m not in the least bit surprised.
Though I’d be just fine if raisins ceased to exist entirely because they suck and I hate them, I am a tad curious what might happen if market-manipulating agricultural regulations were struck down broadly. Boom and bust cycles?
More like “boom and bigger boom cycles” if the behaviour cited in this case is anything to go by. “Stabilising demand” is a load of bullshit if you’re not actually paying the suppliers for their product.
There’s probably another side to this story, if I gave a rat’s. Friend Bandit’s somewhat stilted language leads me to suspect he has a dog in the fight. Three-legs, missing eye, torn ear, answers to the name “Lucky”…
The government confiscated a certain amount of raisins from each farmer so as to raise the price of raisins in general. It’s classic New Deal economic stimulus, and is in fact literally a relic from that era.
Well, if people are allowed to make their own decisions about what to grow and what to eat, something horrible will surely happen. That’s why we have a Department of Agriculture, after all.
Yeah, if only family farmers like Del Monte and the like had any representation in the Halls of Power. Think of the wide variety of healthy foods that would be available to those who can afford it!
I read about this. Such a strange case. From browsing the decision, I didn’t see any direct relevancy toward other ag policies, but I haven’t done my homework. Does anyone know if other policies have similar takings actions attached?
That’s what happened to sugar in the 1970s. (Warning: pdf) The short version is that world sugar prices increased in the early part of the decade, so in 1974 Congress decided there was no longer a need for subsidies or import restrictions. Then in 1977, there was a glut in the sugar market, which drove prices down and essentially wiped out the U.S. sugar beet industry. World prices went up in 1979 but dropped again in 1981. By 1982 Congress said to hell with it, and put import restrictions back on sugar, stabilizing the market.
The only problem with all that was that the sugar beet industry, which was made up of mostly small independent processor and cooperatives, had basically been driven out of business by then. The ripple effect depressed agriculture (and rural life in general) in the northern U.S. while putting almost all U.S. sugar production in the hands of a few giant processors in Florida and Louisiana.
At that point the candy and soft drink industries happened upon high fructose corn syrup, which came with its own advantages and disadvantages.
There are no simple answers in agricultural economics.
If this is some unconstitutional bullshit [SCOTUS says it is] that has been around for 3/4 a century, YTF did it take 3/4 a century for SCOTUS to say it was? What was going on in that 3/4 a century that this didn’t come up before?
No one with standing ever brought a case, or never brought a case this far. The Supreme Court doesn’t simply read regulations it wants to declare unconstitutional.
Are you sure about that? Seems like an awful long time for a law like this to go unchallenged.
Why didn’t someone challenge this in 1945, 51, 67, 83, 99, 2006, etc etc???
Why did it take this long for anyone to bring a case? Did the rule/law used to benefit raisin farmers up until now or something? Or did someone try to bring a case but previous SCOTUS courts rejected it?
